A trial over whether Elon Musk should be liable for tweeting in 2018 about financing for a buyout of Tesla Inc neared its end on Friday, with a lawyer for unhappy shareholders saying the billionaire was not above the law and Musk's lawyer saying his client was not a 'tweeting monster.'
Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro countered that funding was "not an issue" for a Tesla buyout, saying his client was not the "rich liar" and "fire breathing, tweeting monster" that he said the shareholder lawyers tried to portray.
A jury of nine will decide whether Musk's tweets artificially inflated Tesla's share price by playing up the status of funding for the deal, and if so, by how much. Spiro rejected shareholders' claim that some of that decline stemmed from an Aug. 17, 2018, New York Times story questioning the funding.
Musk testified that he had lined up financing, including a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, and could have used his stake in SpaceX - a rocket company of which he is also CEO - to fund a deal, but admitted he lacked specific commitments from potential backers.
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